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Unity in Diversity Annual Report Launched

Unity in Diversity Annual Report Launched

The Unity in Diversity group provides friendship, food, support and learning opportunities to Asylum Seekers and Refugees in the Swansea area.

We feel very fortunate to work with the wonderful organisation, Unity in Diversity (UiD), and are pleased to be able to include the text from the latest UiD Annual Report below.

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Monday, 26 June 2017

It is UiD’s second birthday and I think we should all be very proud of what we’ve achieved. From our humble beginning we’ve grown and developed into a very well-respected service in Swansea in the support of asylum seekers and refugees.

Thanks to all our wonderful volunteers we have received an award and are now recognised as ‘An Organisation of Sanctuary’. Building on the success of our first year much has happened.
Our partnership with Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees has developed into something wonderful, particularly for the people we support. HBTSR have helped us in so many ways. There have been numerous donations of food, stationary equipment and specific help with our community members to meet urgent needs and also much needed support. There have been a number of ‘homestays’ for people who have a passion for farming. Nigussie is now our official contact for getting people involved. We had a number of people volunteer at Hay festival as stewards; this was greatly enjoyed and provided those that went a meaningful and fun respite from their usual anxiety and inactivity. The respite trips have been a huge success. There have been 20 trips in the last year to many beautiful places in the Brecon beacons area and our community members have enjoyed incredibly warm welcomes from all the people and places that support HBTSR. Many wonderful activities have been enjoyed as well as a huge amount of donations being made available to those attending. 50 families have enjoyed the respite trips which have helped us greatly in our aim to improve access to services for women and children. 156 individuals have also enjoyed the trips making a total of 359 people overall. Many thanks also to UiD and SBASSG volunteers that have helped on the trips – if you haven’t had the opportunity to come along you should as it’s an enormously rewarding thing to do. Additionally we are very lucky to be able IELTS classes now thanks to Mac from HBTSR.

We welcome Julian who now kindly oversees UiD FC activities. Thanks again to HBTSR for providing support in donations of football boots and arranging the much enjoyed Hereford United game where our team participated in a half-time penalty shoot-out at one of their league matches.

Collaboration with SBASSG has developed greatly. This was particularly helpful regarding the memorial for Mohammed Abdurezek, a greatly dignified send-off for which we have received heartfelt thanks from our community members and community groups/friends further afield. We are extremely grateful to all that helped this happen.

Working with Marilyn we have further developed our directory of services and the signpost training has been up and running for the last 3 months. 15 people, including 4 UiD volunteers have successfully completed the training and certificates have been sent out. Our collaborative work through the Community Foundations funding is coming along nicely, we had a very well attended ‘Right to Remain Toolkit’ workshop that was very useful and feedback has been excellent. Crisis Intervention training will follow our signpost training.

British Red Cross – 50 individuals have completed basic First Aid training – this now continues as a monthly provision.

The ‘Musical Routes’ project has come to an end and our members really enjoyed showcasing dance, poetry and music. The event at Swansea Waterfront Museum was a great success and we now have a wonderfully made video of UiD’s input which will be especially useful for presenting the friendly and productive atmosphere at UiD in future. Video can be viewed here.

We have adjusted our meetings structure and I hope that our community members have enjoyed contributing to this. We’ve been able to act on suggestions with our established IELTS classes being a good example. We also plan to include periodic training for volunteers during these meetings.

Looking at our figures we can see how many people we have supported – fantastic! This has only been possible due to the wonderful commitment of our committed volunteers and trustees. We also offer our heartfelt thanks to all supporting organisations and donors.

Thank You Very Much.

2016-2017

Attendance at drop in: 4,897

Top 5 countries of origin: Iran, Syria, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Pakistan

New registrations in 2016-17: men 155 / women 90

Collaboration, Partnership and Extra Activities

  • 28 June 2016 – Info session – Post referendum racism and available support (attendance: 22)
  • 10 July 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Llangorse (attendance: 53)
  • 30 July 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Talgarth Sports Day (attendance: 42)
  • 12 August 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Talgarth Family Trip (attendance: 11)
  • 21 August 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Brilley (attendance: 40)
  • 1 September 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Craig y Nos Picnic (attendance: 70)
  • 25 September 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Christ College, Brecon (attendance: 35)
  • 3 October 2016 – UiD/SBASSG – Volunteer visit to Trinity house, Cardiff (attendance: 10)
  • 9 October 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip to Bronllys (attendance: 54)
  • 29 October 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip to Llanthony (attendance: 45)
  • 17 November 2016 – UiD/SBASSG – Right-2-Remain Toolkit Training (attendance: 68)
  • 26 November 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – volunteer outing – Hay Winter Festival (attendance: 8)
  • 27 November 2016 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip to Caerphilly Castle (attendance: 60+)
  • 26 January 2017 – Memorial for Mohammed Abdurezek (attendance: 49)
  • 29 January 2017 – HBTSR/UiD/SBAASG – Respite trip to Cradoc (attendance: 55)
  • 6 February 2017 – UiD/SBASSG – Open University Arts & Apps Event (attendance: 86)
  • 5 March 2017 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip to Penpont House (attendance: 70)
  • 18 March 2017 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Hereford United Trip (attendance: 57)
  • 2 April 2017 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip to Llangorse (attendance: 53)
  • 14 May 2017 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Respite trip – Craig y Nos Picnic (attendance: 45)
  • 26 May – 2nd June 2017 – HBTSR/UiD/SBASSG – Hay Festival (volunteers: 11)

For further information about Unity in Diversity, please visit the UiD website: https://uidswansea.com/